Anna Vocino has spent close to a decade educating people on quitting sugar and grains, one podcast episode at a time. She co-hosts Fitness Confidential, a health podcast with trainer Vinnie Tortorich, has written three bestselling cookbooks, and has voiced characters in hundreds of commercials most of us have heard without knowing it, most recently Mrs. Potato Head in Toy Story 5. She also happens to live right here in Santa Ynez. Her fourth cookbook, Eat Happy Cocktail Hour, arrives on shelves October 13.
Her first three books, Eat Happy, Eat Happy Too, and Eat Happy Italian, were built around meals: dinners, sides, food that gets a family through a weekday. This one is built around the happiest, and sometimes most stressful, hour before dinner. Eat Happy Cocktail Hour runs 240 pages and holds 72 recipes for cocktails, mocktails, and small plates, all gluten-free, grain-free, and low-carb, the same rules Vocino applies to every dish she publishes.
Vocino was diagnosed with celiac disease at 28, which forced her off gluten for good and reshaped how she cooks entirely. That diagnosis also led her to co-host the podcast, built around a philosophy Tortorich calls NSNG: no sugar, no grains. The rules are simple: cut both, skip the calorie counting, and treat it as a lifestyle, not a diet with an end date.
The idea took root gradually as she wrote her earlier books. Like many Valley locals, she kept getting pulled toward the drink side of the kitchen: fresh juice, real fruit, something more interesting than a syrup-based mixer. A cocktail or a glass of wine before dinner is close to a local custom, and Vocino wanted a version of that custom without the hidden sugar.
That turns out to be a real, hidden problem. Alcohol sold in the United States is not required to carry an ingredient label the way packaged food is. A bottle of wine or tequila can legally contain added sugar, including high fructose corn syrup, without anything on the label telling you so.
This is where living in the Valley works in Vocino's favor. She points to friends like Sunshine Doench Stricker, winemaker behind Future Perfect Wine in Los Olivos, as proof of what a small producer can do differently: small-batch, sustainably farmed, without the shortcuts a mass-market label can hide. Most of the country lacks this kind of access; someone buying wine at a big box store elsewhere is usually choosing between mass-produced bottles from a handful of massive producers. Here, the good stuff is a short drive away. Farmers markets, working farms, and high-quality wine within reach of nearly everyone are not abstractions here. They are a daily blessing.
As a fun sneak preview of the book, here are two of Anna's recipes. The dill pickle ranch dip leans into a flavor with real roots here: ranch dressing was invented at a dude ranch above Santa Barbara in the 1950s, long before it went national. Vocino's version keeps the tang and drops the processed ingredients. The BCC, a blackberry cocktail built on her infused vodka, applies that same idea to the glass, real fruit doing the work a bottled syrup usually would.
THE BCC
YIELD: 1 COCKTAIL
Blackberry-infused vodka solves all problems, especially when shaken with citrus and coconut cream. The vodka needs about two weeks to infuse, so start it well ahead of your next happy hour: pack fresh blackberries into a mason jar, cover with vodka, seal, and store somewhere cool and dark, shaking every few days. Strain out the fruit before using.
Store-bought infused spirits often carry more sugar and flavoring than the label lets on, since producers aren't required to disclose it. Infusing your own is easy, and the method works well beyond blackberries: swap in citrus peel, fresh herbs, whole spices, sliced jalapeños, or even coffee beans. Citrus and herbs take two to four weeks; jalapeños and coffee beans need just a day or two.
INGREDIENTS
Ice cubes
2 ounces blackberry-infused vodka
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon canned full-fat unsweetened coconut cream
Plain soda water, to float
Mint sprig and/or lemon slice, for garnish (optional)
DIRECTIONS
Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Pour in the vodka, lemon juice, and coconut cream. Shake for 30 to 45 seconds, until ice cold and the coconut cream is fully pulverized. Strain into a coupe or cocktail glass. Float soda water to fill the glass. Garnish with a mint sprig and/or lemon slice.
Reprinted with permission from Eat Happy Cocktail Hour by Anna Vocino (BenBella Books, October 2026).
DILL PICKLE RANCH DIP
YIELD: 1½ CUPS
We are 'murican. We love ranch. We love pickles. We love them all together. When I make this, I save a few steps and use Eat Happy Kitchen Ranch Dust in place of the onion powder, garlic powder, dried dill, salt, and pepper. The dip is delish with cut raw veggies or Sour Cream Ranch Crackers (see recipe in Eat Happy Cocktail Hour).
INGREDIENTS
1 cup sour cream
3 tablespoons goat cheese
2 tablespoons dill pickle juice
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon minced fresh dill, plus more for garnish
1/2 teaspoon dried dill
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 dill pickles, finely chopped (about 1/2 cup)
DIRECTIONS
In a mixing bowl, stir together the sour cream, goat cheese, dill pickle juice, lemon juice, onion powder, garlic powder, fresh dill, dried dill, salt, and pepper until well mixed and smooth. Fold in the chopped dill pickles. Transfer the dip to a serving bowl. Garnish with additional fresh dill.
Reprinted with permission from Eat Happy Cocktail Hour by Anna Vocino (BenBella Books, October 2026).